I have decided to make this to show the differences and similarities OUTBRK has to irl Forecasting models. Maybe this might help players understand what it is they are looking for in the game. I will not be going over reflectivity and Doppler wind velocity as these are not for forecasting. They are also the simplest tools in OUTBRK and I feel are the easiest to understand for newcomers.

https://weather.cod.edu/forecast/

This is what I use to forecast. It's free to use, easily accessible, and provides a ton of data. The following models are my "essentials".

GFS (Global Forecast System)
The GFS model can be used to get a rough idea of what is happening much further out (384 hours or 16 days out) than the other models. I check this to get a good idea where to focus with the other models.

NAM (North American Mesoscale Forecast System)
A sort of middle ground model. Doesn't model as far into the future as the GFS, but has higher resolution. But not as good as the next two models. Can see out to 84 hours out.

The following two models are much higher resolution than the previous models and are for referencing very near to the storm event you are watching. Use these to refine where to drive out to intercept.

RAP (Rapid Refresh) 51 hours out
HRRR (High-Resolution Rapid Refresh) 48 hours out

Once out on the field on the day of the event you switch to Doppler radar apps/programs of choice to observe reflectivity and velocity as well as observation by sight. This is the part we play out in the game.

Now lets begin looking at the same products as the game shows. All of these will be using the NAM model

First up, surface temps!


Not super helpful or important on it's own. Not to say it's 100% useless. We really should look at the dewpoints to get anything out of this.


Now we are talking. General rule of thumb I've picked up from chasers like Skip Talbot, is we are looking for 55 F or higher for dewpoint. That's cool and all but what does that mean? Well, dewpoint tells us how saturated the air is. And a dewpoint of 55 F tells us that the air needs to be cooled to that temp to achieve 100% relative humidity. What happens the closer to 100% you are? Precipitation. In these examples, the average temps are ranging from high 60 (light orange/yellow) to mid 80 and even a few 90's (dark red/purple). Looking back at the dewpoints, we have a large blob of purple (70-78) coinciding with temps of mid to high 70's. The air here is highly saturated. We will be focusing in this area in further map products.

Next, we will look at wind speeds at various altitudes of air pressure millibars. OUTBRK gives us the following three:
250mb
500mb
850mb

There are other available mb options to choose from irl (700mb, 925mb). The lower the number, the lower the pressure, the higher altitude in the atmosphere. 925mb is nearly surface level winds. These altitudes are not constant, as air pressure ebbs and flows. Hence why we are more interested in what is happening at the various pressure levels and not the altitudes. Lets look at each millibar product that the game gives us.

250mb

500mb

850mb

The color gradients highlight winds over certain knot thresholds:
250mb - 50kts
500mb - 30kts
850mb - 10kts

We can reference back and forth between each mb product to watch for wind shear differences in both direction and speed. This is very important for supercells to form. Once again, general rule of thumb is anything under 30kts at the 500mb is not worth looking at. We can also get a rough idea of what the direction of movement the cell will take based on the 500-700mb winds.

Next, we are interested in CAPE. What is CAPE you might be asking?

CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) is, in VERY layman's terms, a measurement of how unstable the atmosphere is. There are several different CAPE products (Surface, Effective, Mean Layer, 0-3km, etc) but we will be most interested currently in MUCAPE (Most Unstable Convective Available Potential Energy) for this example.

Per the National Weather Service, MUCAPE "is a measure of instability in the troposphere. This value represents the total amount of potential energy available to the most unstable parcel of air found within the lowest 300-mb of the atmosphere while being lifted to its level of free convection (LFC)."

Big words, but don't worry too much about it. Once again. Bigger values = more instability.


As we can see, there is an area reaching up to 4,000 J/Kg (red) of CAPE!!! Not a guarantee that major storms will develop here, but as long as all the other ingredients are here, those chances are pretty high. Hovering over the map also provides Bulk Shear. I found areas of 40-41 kts of Bulk Shear in the red shaded zones.

Rule of thumb, we are looking for at least 1000 J/Kg and at least 35kts of Bulk Shear.

If the storm moves into an area of low/no CAPE, it will die out.

There are an additional two concepts tied to CAPE.

CIN/CINH - Convective Inhibition

and the LSI - Cap/Lid Strength Index

CIN you can think of CIN as the OPPOSITE or INVERSE of CAPE. It is the force that the unstable CAPE must overcome in order to initiate storms. The larger the CIN value, the stronger the lift force needs to be. If the CIN is strong enough, we call that Cap. Cap inhibits the instability of the air. CAPE is only the Available Potential after all.

LSI is another measurement of the Cap. As per the National Weather Service, "It shows the thermal difference between a lifted surface parcel and the warmest part of the cap. Higher values indicate a more stable layer."

In general, the Cap is said to be breakable when CIN is 30 J/Kg or less and/or the LSI is 2 degrees or less. A negative LSI is rare, but is indicative of freely buoyant low level instability.

The following are essentially looking at the answers at the back of the book. However, without understanding the other prior parameters these map products could easily lead you astray. I really just use these as a second opinion. If these line up with what I'm seeing, great. If not, I should delve into the other products to see why the models are thinking these areas have a chance for supercells and tornados.

Supercell Composite

Significant Tornado Parameter










In our case, these areas DO line up with what we have been seeing. Once again, NOTHING is ever guaranteed in weather. All/most ingredients can be there, but when the day arrives and all the chasers converge in the area, it's still only a chance a tornado could form. NOT ALL "ingredients" are required. It just makes storm initiation and tornado development more likely.

This is a sounding forecast of the area we've been looking at (the red-purple areas of the supercell composite and the significant tornado parameter maps). By clicking and holding on the map, this sounding will generate. This is not a real skew-t sounding (those are made at regular intervals throughout the day whenever weather ballons are sent up), this is just using all the data provided by the NAM model to estimate what will be going on at that time. I will not go over how to read a skew-t as that is way beyond the purpose of this guide and has no relation to the game, but I'm including it just to show just how much deeper the rabbit hole can still go for those interested in further learning.

If you have been following along on the provided site, you have likely noticed there are a metric butt-load more map products available. Some more helpful than others. Others are only helpful for more niche data. Feel free to explore them all. Some products are only available on certain models. For example: Only the HRRR has Updraft Helicity Swaths (Convective products)

The following excellent videos are from Skip Talbot. I highly recommend checking them out. The vast majority of what I have learned has been through his channel.

Field Tactics for Practical Storm Spotting

Storm Spotting Secrets

Front Line Storm Spotting

So let's walk through my personal checklist at the beginning of each game.

Check all map products.







I have highlighted the areas of different saturation levels in this picture.










So, what have we determined?

Dewpoints are most favorable in the central and northern regions.

CAPE is pretty strong through much of the map.

Storm direction is North. Approx heading of 010. Not a lot of directional shear, but a decent amount of speed shear.

Too early to pick which cell to focus on, but the northern batch of cells are of current interest. I'm aiming for intercepting somewhere between Bakersville, Prairie Hills, and Grassland Park.

With this, the forecast part of the game has already ended.

We can now visually confirm the situation. Looking directly at the lead storms...

Yep, those are looking good.

We will pick a spot where we can easily reach those first 2 northern cells and wait for further development.

While I'm in route, a quick map check (I've taken the time to label what's going on)
RFD = Rear Flank Downdraft
FFD = Forward Flank Downdraft

There is no tornado there yet, but that's where I'm looking for it to form. The RFD pushes through the rain-free updraft base creating a somewhat horseshoe shape. Cyclonic tornadoes (counter clockwise) can be found on that north end of the horseshoe and hook echo. This is where the inflow notch and the RFD meet. Sometimes, anti-cyclonic (clockwise) tornadoes can be found toward the south end. These are usually far weaker though.

It's looking pretty good. Not too happy with how close the next cell is but I'll continue to keep an eye on this northern most cell. Foreshadowing perhaps?

We can see the cell becoming more defined over time.




We can catch a brief glimpse of it as I approach...


Unfortunately, these cells are indeed merging. Possibly ensuring this tornado will be short lived. The merging cell's FFD clogging up the main cell's inflow notch.


This makes it heavily rain-wrapped

But, I'll continue document it's life cycle even though there are better storms just to the south.




Just as expected, the storm has been choked out. The funnel lifts. It's possible it can cycle, but I'm doubtful. Onwards to the next storm...


Such is the life of a chaser...

Hopefully after seeing how to predict significant weather IRL, you can now further use that knowledge to better understand all the map modes OUTBRK has to offer. Once again, I have not chased storms IRL as unfortunately my work schedule does not allow for it. So I simply forecast from home and try to guess what storms all the chasers I follow on youtube will go after.

I also do not condone anyone to chase IRL without any real training/education. These storms are unpredictable and can catch even seasoned veterans off guard with fatal results.